Penney For Your Thoughts!: Camping Trip

Well, we are back from our 2 night camping trip and we survived - Even having fun!!

It was a last minute decision to pack the kids and all their paraphernalia up and head down to Brunswick heads for a 2 night break. I had mentioned it to one of my friends, who has recently split with her husband and is doing a fantastic job looking after her 2 little kiddies, that we were going to head away and funny enough she was thinking about heading to the same place.

Worked out perfectly as C is one of Grace's best little friends, so the 4 kids all had a blast together.

Setting up the tent was not as much of a mission as we expected it to be. It took about 1 hour of Duane and I having many heated "discussions" to get the huge 4 room monstrosity erected and habitable. The kids were happy to sit and watch us fumble our way, could have helped that I had filled their hands up with red rock chippies!

After the tent was up, all the necessities were unloaded from the Tarago. Considering we were hoping to just take a few things, there was a lot of crap loaded into the bag of the car. The "tent house" was set up, so then we headed down to the beach for some fun.

The afternoon was perfect. Beautiful light for some gorgeous photos of the kids running around in the shallow water having a blast. Grace spent most of the time on her body board trying to catch the frothy white waves. To top it all off there were dolphins frolicking so close to us, it was beautiful. They were only about 20 metres from us and it looked like a pod with a few Mums and their babies. The kids were entranced as they watched and waited for the magical moment when the dolphins came to the surface.

The rest of the weekend was spent wandering around the gorgeous little town of Brunswick, hanging out at the beach, playing at the park and visiting the cute little library. The kids were exhausted every day so had nice long day sleeps and early nights. We kinda didn't think too much about how limiting it would be once the kids are asleep of a night, but luckily I had packed a good book, so I was happy to be tucked up nice and early and left to read. Duane was petrified of having to sleep that long (he rarely sleeps over 5 hours), so headed out to the local pub to kill some time with a drink and keno. The next day he made friends with some guys camping with their kids, so spent the next night down at their tent watching AFL. Very OTT campers, they had rigged up a TV outside, and had set up a little lounge area. Duane was happy though, watching his beloved footy whilst drinking a few beers. He was also questioned as to how he ended up camping with 2 women and 4 kids. Even though Jen & her kids were in a separate tent to us, it did look at times like Duane had 2 wives as we all took turns wrangling kids.

Meals were relatively easy. We just had Bbq's both nights and delicious calamari and chips for lunch. Its a crime to go to Brunswick heads and not go to Starfish to get their famous calamari and home made chips. Yum-Yum, the best I have ever had. Perfect to eat on the river, layed out on the paper with lashings of tomato sauce.

It was a fantastic little holiday and one that we can't wait to do again. There are a few things that I forgot to take and a few things that I would have done differently, so we will know better for next time. We are already planning the next camping trip in October some time to a place out Beaudesert way. Its a farm stay that you can either stay at the cabins or take your own tent and camp.

Here's a few pics from the trip. Lots of gorgeous scenery and views, but for some reason my lens never strays too far from my own beautiful kids.